How to Stop Sucking

The Incomplete Guide to

Improving Your Musical Abilities
Prologue

Since I embarked on my musical journey twenty-one

years ago, I have met over 10,000 musicians of
different levels, styles, and ages. The two things
99.99% of them had in common included the will to
get better and the inability to do so in any substantial
or meaningful way. In this short booklet I will talk
about many of the obstacles I’ve witnessed
musicians struggle with, and I will try to suggest
ways to overcome them. It’s important to remember
that we all suffer from many of the issues I’m raising
in this book. It’s easier to notice these imperfections
in other players (self-reflection is always harder than
judging others), but I can tell you that I suffered (and
oftentimes still suffer) from most (if not all) of these
obstacles.
Playing Enough

We are what we do, and the first step to being a

great musician is being a musician. A person who
never made a chair is not a carpenter. A person who
plays a few songs a month is barely a musician. To
be something means to constantly act it out in the
world. There is no overestimating the importance of
time spent with your instrument. Decide that for the
next thirty days you will play your instrument at least
five minutes every day. You may play more, but not
less (and you shouldn’t play
fifteen minutes on Monday and none on Tuesday
and Wednesday).

Getting Distracted

I believe that being bored is an evolutionary tool that

tells us we’re not doing something worthwhile. When
I was fourteen years old and picked up the
saxophone I decided that I’m not going to play video
games anymore. I realized that I will never be able
to put in the time I need to practice if I still have the
option to get a beautiful stream of endorphins from
my computer. The challenges today are much
greater as computer engineers have gotten so much
better at tricking our brains into believing we’re not
wasting our lives away. Unfortunately, it’s not
realistic to expect anyone to get rid of their
smartphones. But you can (and should) put it away
when you’re practicing. Looking up and watching
tutorials, searching for backing tracks, using
Amazing Slow Downer for transcriptions, and
recording yourself for Instagram are all a huge
waste of time, disguised as useful tools. All those
things create the illusion that what you’re missing is
information, and the secret that’s going to take you
to the next level is just around the corner on the next
video, but what you need to get better is right there
in your hands. Put everything away and just spend
time with your instrument. It’s what every one of
your heroes did, and it works.

Focusing on Getting Better

Most of our daily activities are composed of tasks

we learned to do many years ago and we put no
thought or effort into. We speak and communicate
every day, but rarely add words to our vocabulary or
actively improve our grammar. We cook, but we
don’t research ways to
make every meal tastier and healthier, or sharpen
our knife skills. There is no way to improve anything
without actively trying to do so. It’s as true for simple
tasks such as cleaning a house as it is for
complicated systems such as relationships and
music. While playing is a necessary step to getting
better, playing in itself is not enough. In order to get
better you must understand what you can improve
on, figure out how to improve it, and put in the work
to go from point A to point B.
Playing in Front of People

When you play at home you’re in imagination land.

You have limitless takes. There is one way to bring
yourself back to reality and that’s playing in front of
people. Try and play a few shows a week: coffee
shops, bars, open mics, dinner parties, or even a
busy intersection. Whatever it is, just get out there
and play for a live audience. When people interact
with people they’re extremely attracted to they
sometimes become so self-aware they seem to
forget how to walk and how to talk. All of a sudden
they notice their hand movements, breathing, plus
any voluntary and involuntary thing they do. It’s the
same with music. When you play in front of people
you become aware of your own faults and it will
guide you in the direction you need to go.

Admitting How Deep and Extensive Your Issues

Are

No matter how systematic someone tries to be when

they’re learning music, there are always gaps and
blindspots that occur in someone’s playing and
knowledge, since music is too vast a subject to
tackle perfectly. When someone sees your
weakness as a musician it can be embarrassing,
especially if you’re an adult who perceives
themselves as a professional
musician. The thought of fumbling when executing
some specific simple rhythms, or hitting wrong notes
on solos despite graduating summa cum laude from
a known jazz university and playing many gigs can
be so devastating it’s easier to ignore it than
admitting it. Especially since people won’t tell you
about your issues (unless you work for Dani Rabin
and me). It’s not because they’re nice or care about
you. It’s either they don’t know enough about music
themselves or they don’t care about your playing at
all (and why should they care?), and they know that
bumming people out is a sure way to never be called
on for gigs. When you find out you missed
something major you should try and focus on the
fact that you’re going to be much better when you fix
it, rather than on the fact that you made terrible
mistakes in the past and many people heard you
embarrassing yourself (the truth is that nobody
notices if you mess up, since it’s the norm to play at
a mediocre level; they mostly only notice if you’re
good). If, for example, you noticed you keep ending
all your phrases on a downbeat (which happens to
more people than you think), you can be assured
that once you address it, you will be a much better
player. I have many issues with how I played on all
the albums we recorded (including the last one), but
that’s how I keep getting better: I keep finding things
to improve about my playing. When you try to figure
out how to improve your own playing, don't be afraid
to go deep into the most basic things about it.
Maybe you can’t play on some progressions, maybe
you can barely play triplets, maybe some of your
notes are not coming out as clean as they should.
Dig deep.
Letting Go

I can’t begin to tell you how many people I meet

won’t accept basic things that have to do with
playing jazz
saxophone. I always welcome arguments and
questions, as it makes me rethink and sharpen my
positions, but at the end of the day, there is a
difference between arguing a position and blindly
defending a position you don’t fully understand
yourself. Here’s an example that’s true for most
instruments, if not all: some people tell me that they
developed tendinitis or shoulder/back pain from
playing. But when I suggest they change the
physicality of how they play, they argue that this is
how they learned to play, list the benefits this way of
playing provides them, and explain why they
shouldn’t change this basic thing about their playing.
It doesn’t matter that I know from experience that
playing over ten hours a day shouldn’t give you any
physical problems. Someone they looked up to
showed them how to play when they were kids, and
no matter what I say, it won’t get them to admit their
local teacher might have taught them something
that’s hurting them. In order to move forward they
have to rethink everything they know about playing.
These types of problems don’t always manifest
physically, but almost all musicians have things that
they should but won’t let go of. Just because a tool
led you to where you currently are doesn’t mean that
there are no better tools moving forward. Keep
questioning your assumptions and see if they serve
in propelling you forward or hinder your progress.

Low Self-Esteem

Once in a while I meet a musician that has such low

self-esteem that they can barely make a sound out
of their instrument. These people often apologize to
the audience during or after a performance,
self-deprecating and degrading themselves. If you
don’t think you have something worth saying, then
no one will think you have something worth listening
to. If an audience member
spent time listening to you and you tell them that you
suck and you messed up, then what you’re really
saying is that they’re stupid for wasting their time
and energy on you. Stop apologizing. In words
and/or demeanor. There is time to be critical of
yourself and that’s at home in the practice room. If
you decide to put yourself in a position where you’re
playing for people, then it’s time to show them what
you’ve got, not all of your insecurities. When you go
on a date or a job interview you don’t start by telling
them all your faults. Quite the opposite. Same here.
Confidence won’t get you to sound like Charlie
Parker (or look like a movie star), but it will help
bring out the best current version of yourself. With all
the current technology and social media apps,
there’s a fierce competition for people's attention,
and being a musician means to participate in this
competition. Play like you mean it and like you
intend to command attention.
Extremely High Self-Esteem

The other side of the coin, while not as deadly, is to

have too much confidence in your playing and being
too pleased with where you are. It’s good and
necessary to be comfortable on stage, but once off,
there is always room for improvement. I have met so
many musicians who let compliments go to their
heads to the point where they barely feel any need
to practice or scrutinize their own playing. There is
no urgency in practicing if you feel you're the best
trumpet player in the country, or one of the leading
bassists in the world. I saw Marbin fans telling my
musicians that they’re the best drummer or bassist
they have ever heard, and it made our suggestions
to them on how to improve completely pointless
because they would respond with, “People love my
playing and the show so what Danny and Dani are
saying is really not a big deal.” The chances that you
are already a musician of historic proportions are
slim. It’s much easier getting a big head playing
around town or comparing yourself to musicians you
don’t like; it’s hard to keep a big head when listening
to your heroes at their best.

Forgetting to Have Fun

Playing is fun. Give anyone that’s not a drummer

from the age of zero to the age of ninety a pair of
drumsticks and a drum set and they will start
banging away and having a blast. The problem is
that the more we learn and invest in something the
more it becomes a part of our identity and the way
we see ourselves. If I suck at the saxophone, and I
start thinking that it means I suck as a person,
instead of having a good time playing for people, I
start criticizing every move I make and taking the joy
completely out of doing the thing I should be
enjoying the most. When playing shows, try to
remember how much fun it is just to make sound and
how joyful the act of playing really is.

Confusing Metaphors About Playing with

Playing Itself

Toddlers very quickly see a terrible painting of a dog

in a book as the thing it represents–a dog–and not
colors on paper. The way most people understand
the world is by representation. We make up stories
about ourselves and about the world that help orient
us within it. For example: playing in a jazz trio is
having a three-way conversation. Following this
logic, the pianist should never overplay or leave an
abundant amount of space for the bassist and
drummer to speak their mind. It’s true that this kind
of musical interaction between band members is a
possibility, but that’s what it is. One option. Oscar
Peterson had a different approach (the piano is
always at the center with clear and virtuosic lines)
and it worked pretty well for him. Unfortunately,
many people can never see behind their own
metaphors and they actually limit their playing and
even dislike some music because it doesn’t neatly fit
into the story they came up with. Another example
is: I’m a pocket drummer; I’m here to support the
other musicians, play the song, and be the
foundation the music rests upon. Playing a
supporting role as a musician is an art in itself and I
don’t think for a second every musician needs to
shred (or even that shredding necessarily makes
you a better musician) , but they will avoid working
on things they don’t perceive as a part of that story
like the plague. In reality, some of the best pocket
drummers are technical masters like Steve Gadd,
Vinnie Cauliuta, and Dennis Chambers. They didn’t
get to where they are by limiting the scope of music
they tackle.

Losing Your Center to Social Pressure

No two people are the same. It’s not only a cliché,

but also an important reality to understand if you
wish to play the music game correctly. It’s not clear
how we develop a musical aesthetic, but it definitely
has to do with the time and culture you grew up in.
We can only truly understand our own perspective
and aesthetic. For example, if you hate every funk
band in history, it doesn’t mean you can’t figure out
the technicality of funk playing. But there is no way
you could ever play funk in a way that people that
like those bands will connect to. There is something
deep about music that appeals to us more than the
obvious reality of it. Listening to saxophonists as a
child made me dedicate my life to jazz saxophone,
but I don’t like most saxophonists, even though they
might play the same
scales over the same grooves, and for someone that
doesn’t like jazz and/or saxophone they all might
sound the same or at least extremely similar. That’s
why it irks me that so many musicians completely
abandon their aesthetic just because their taste in
music doesn’t line up with the taste of their peers or
because someone in their vicinity had success
playing a little differently than them. So many jazz
artists that hate fusion put out fusion albums
because bands like us or Snarky Puppy sell tickets
to shows, but they don’t understand anything about
fusion, and to someone that actually likes it, like me,
it sounds like a parody of the style. Then you have a
ton of fusion musicians that start to play jam band
music without knowing the first thing about it
because jam bands have a broader appeal and
some people like Scofield or Jimmy Herring found
success in blurring those lines and crossing over. It
never works, and the audience sees right through it.
Don’t try to hide your aesthetic or play to try and
impress your peers, who won’t buy tickets to your
show or purchase your album anyway. Do what you
love and understand, and then figure out a way to
sell it. It’s the only chance you got.

Listen to Music

There is no output without input, and nothing is

created in a vacuum. Every inventor, in music or
otherwise, relies on the body of work that was
created before them. If you want to have a chance in
discovering anything new and exciting in music you
have to familiarize yourself with as much music as
possible, and above all, with all the monumental
musicians that have anything to do with the
instrument and style you’re pursuing. I had students
that claimed they wanted to play jazz, but never
listened to it. Imagine learning a language you’ve
never heard in your life. It would be nearly
impossible. Another important
thing is to listen to or be aware of different styles of
music, and specifically be minimally familiar with
anyone that accomplished something on your
instrument (even if you don’t like their style of
playing or the genre they’re a part of). Playing blues
guitar, you don't necessarily need to spend a lot of
time trying to learn how to play like Django
Reinhardt, but just listening to his music might give
you a different perspective on your craft. And who
knows, you might think of creative ways to translate
something from his playing to your blues playing and
give it an extra flare and depth.

Memorize Music

There are three main reasons why you want to

memorize music and not read it off the page: The
way it looks, the way it feels, and what it does to
your playing. If you had an electrician come to your
house and he needed a book to install a light switch,
you would be worried he’s not the best electrician
around and he might set your house on fire. If you
went to the doctor and he needed to google how to
do a routine exam you might be looking for a second
opinion. It’s the exact same thing with music. When
you read on stage you look like a child playing a
recital for his parents, not like a professional. It also
doesn’t feel good. Even if you’re just an amateur
singer-guitarist and you hang out with your friends
and they want you to bust out some tunes on a
camping trip. You don’t want to have to look at your
phone and stop every time you need to scroll and
pray your battery won’t run out just to play
“Wonderwall.” Lastly, when you’re reading, you’re
using a CPU that would be much better utilized
somewhere else and would make you sound good
instead of just reading and surviving the song. There
is also a different kind of familiarity you get with a
piece of music once you memorize it, and it will get
you to play much more, because it’s readily available
to you whenever you want it.

Skip Warm-Up

Between sleeping, working, exercising, having a

social life, renewing your driver’s license,
metal-detecting, ice-skating, hunting, and gathering,
there is barely enough time in the day to practice.
Utilize that precious time to teach your body new
movements; a good practicing session will end with
a clear achievement. A full (or at least partial)
conquest of something you couldn’t or didn't know
how to do before that session. For example: you
can’t play C melodic minor up and down your entire
instrument and by the end of the practice session be
able to do so at 16th-note speed at 120bpm. Don’t
waste your time playing a musical drill you already
played hundreds or thousands of times before
wasting a substantial percentage of your valuable
practice time on something that has inconsequential
to no effect on your playing.

Practice Slow and Perfectly

The main reason why people’s practice isn’t effective

is what I like to call ‘the computer game mentality.’
What I mean by that is that they would practice
something, play it kind of sloppy a few times, hit it
once, and then feel like they can move on, as if
they’ve been playing a computer game and they just
finished a hard level. The problem is that our brain
doesn’t work like that. If you played a passage
wrong five times and right twice then your brain can’t
discern what was right and what was wrong. That’s
why people practice all their lives, but their playing is
still
sloppy and they can’t seem to clean up their
technique ever. When practicing, play whatever
you’re working on so slow that you can’t make a
mistake and you’re hyper aware of your time, touch,
sound, articulation, etc. It’s difficult, because your
brain is going to scream at you that you’re wasting
your time since you’re practicing something you can
do (that’s the point), but if you resist the urge to stop
or to speed up too soon you will find your technique
is actually getting a lot better, faster than ever
before.

Play with the Band

There is an epidemic of people playing with

themselves. It’s OK and even encouraged to do it
when you’re alone, but it’s unsavory and in poor
taste to do it when others are present. The first and
most obvious sign of it is players tapping their feet.
When playing you should always be listening to the
other musicians in the band (especially the
drummer, no matter what instrument you’re playing),
not just focusing on yourself, and definitely not
playing to your feet. First of all, drummers work very
hard on being able to keep time steadily with their
feet even with simple patterns like quarter-notes, so
if you didn’t practice that specifically there is no
chance you would be able to keep time like that. In
addition, every player I’ve ever seen tapping their
feet always stops doing it when they play a rhythm
that’s a little bit syncopated or complicated. The
second thing is that tapping your feet on
two-and-four or even on every quarter-note isn’t
enough information. What ends up happening is you
start playing in the same BPM as the band, but it
doesn’t sound like you’re really connected to the
band and are in the music.
The Right Amount of Attention

When playing (not when practicing), you want to be

in a free-floating-attention state of mind. It means
that you’re engaged with what you’re doing and are
not distracted by externalities, and also that you’re
not hyper-focused on the task at hand and trying to
notice everything that happens around you at all
times. It’s the exact same mental space you want to
have while driving. A good driver is aware of the
road around them and is not busy texting, but they’re
also not panicking, looking around frantically for
threats, or trying to feel the exact amount of
pressure they use on the gas and brake pedals. In
both extremes you won’t be able to notice when
things that actually demand your attention are
happening on the road. In the first scenario it’s
because your attention is solely on the phone and in
the second one it is because you’re trying to take in
too much information and you won’t be able to
discern the important parts from the mundane. While
playing, I would recommend listening to your
drummer and just letting your mind and hands flow
(if you’re a drummer then you probably want to listen
to the bassist and/or the soloist).

Play the Groove

Every player in the band, regardless of their

instrument, shouldn’t just play on the groove, but
should play the groove. What this means in reality is
really simple. If you take out all the other musicians
and just keep your part, the groove should be
obvious to the listener just from the way you’re
playing. There is a very easy way to test if you’re
doing it. Imagine a groove, choose a person or two
in your band, and without telling them anything, start
playing and see if they can jump in and if you’ve
gotten
them to imagine the same thing you did (not just the
tempo but the entire groove). I do this in clinics
sometimes with the drummers in attendance and I’ve
never had an issue. The point is not that I can do it,
but that it should be easy to do even with someone
you have never played with and isn’t necessarily a
professional player (we’re talking about college and
high school students).

Have the Right Tools for the Job

We, as musicians, sneer at people when we ask

them what kind of music they listen to and they
answer they like all kinds of music and listen to
everything. However, most musicians, when asked
what kind of music they play, answer the exact same
thing. This is a huge problem, because the tools you
need to play avant-garde classical music are not the
same tools you need to play Mississippi Blues and
those are not the same tools for Djent and so on and
so on. There is no way to hone your tools if you don’t
even know what tools you need to perform your job.
You can’t spend years polishing your carpentry skills
and be perplexed that it doesn’t seem to help your
cooking almost at all. Think about what music you
actually play the most and what music you want to
play the most. The more specific you get, the better.
After you’ve done that, it will be much easier to
understand what you need to work on to improve
and how to do it.

Confusing Won’t-Do with Can’t-Do

It’s definitely true that nobody needs all the tools in

their tool bag, but too many people dismiss tools
they could use just because they don’t want the
headache or the hard work that comes along with
acquiring those tools. I
don’t dismiss anything until I can at least do an
estimation of it, and after I give it a good amount of
thought and trial-and-error to see if there’s a way I
could use it in a musical way. I have played with
bassists that can’t slap to save their lives, but are
proficient in soloing and playing lines, and I have
also played with bassists that are the complete
opposite. I know bassists that can shred insanely
while slapping, but are complete novices when they
need to play fingerstyle bass. Now, no matter what
style of music you play, there is a place for both
types of bass playing (even slapping a double-bass
could be awesome if you play jazz exclusively,
though admittedly, not as useful). Here’s another
example: I’m a soprano sax player, but have been
struggling to play tenor for the past few years (I
started playing tenor in 2015). Only recently did I
start feeling confident enough on tenor to open the
show playing it. I think that all the misery was worth
it, and that it made our shows better, our albums
better, and battling with it made me a better player
on soprano as well. The good news is that the worse
you are at something the easier it is to make big
strides in it, so if you’ve been neglecting a huge part
of your playing, just start working on it and you’d be
surprised how quickly you see results.

Strive to be Great, Not Unique

One of the first things I noticed when I started

getting into music, and into jazz more specifically,
was that every great player had their own unique
and distinct style. The conclusion I arrived at (as
many others do) is that in order to be great you need
to be unique, and I spent countless hours
contemplating how exactly I could develop or
discover a style no one thought about before. It took
me many years (and actually reaching the goal of
having my own recognizable sound) to realize that I
had it backwards. It’s the great players that are
unique, and not the unique players that are great. In
order to be unique in the technical sense of the word
all you have to do is play things that other players
are incapable or unwilling to play. I’ve never seen
anyone placing their mouthpiece inside the bell of
their saxophone and rattling it like a shaker (doing
that won’t get you a large fan base, but it might get
you some grants so if you’re inclined to do so, you
can go ahead. I won’t sue). The point is that
something has to be unique and functional at the
same time. Let’s take basketball as an example.
Stephen Curry changed the game by making
three-point baskets in volume and from a distance
that wasn’t seen before, but he made enough of
them that now you immediately have a great number
of players that do the same. He changed the way
players, coaches, and fans view what’s possible and
feasible in the game of basketball. It’s not just that
his style was unique, but he proved that it’s
functional as well. At the end of the day, we’re all
different from each other and if we keep asking
ourselves how we can get better and keep stepping
in the direction it takes us, we will end up in a place
no one has been before whether we want to or not
(though we do have to carve our own path and not
just follow in the footsteps of the people that came
before us).

Basics First

According to an Oxford University Study (that I didn’t

read), the top 100 most used words in the English
language count for fifty percent in all of English
literature (and probably an even higher percentage
of spoken language). Taking that into account it’s
pretty intuitive that trying to memorize a dictionary
alphabetically as a way of learning a new language
is a terrible idea. The best strategy is to learn the
most used words and phrases and always expand
your knowledge and vocabulary in this fashion.
Same thing is true with music. Always focus on the
tools you use most. Start with 8th and 16th notes
then move to triplets and sextuplets. Quintuplet and
Septaplets can be useful, but get the basics down
first. Learning the entire Realbook in all keys is a
lofty goal, but starting with the most played songs in
the most played keys is a much better approach.
Tapping can be cool (so I’ve heard), but picking is
more important.

Time/Reward Ratio

While it’s not always easy to tell in advance it’s a

good idea to calculate the time it will take you to
complete a project and what you will gain at the end
of it, for example: Transcribing and learning
Coltrane’s twenty seven minutes and thirty nine
seconds long solo on the title track from My Favorite
Things (Live at the Half Note), will take anywhere
between a hundred years and forever and at the end
of it you will probably have a headache. Memorizing
Blue Bossa and learning how to play over the
harmony (learning the chord notes, the scales, the
enclosures, etc) on the other hand would take a few
hours (if you’re a jazz beginner), and by the end of it
you could start playing this song in every jazz jam
session. When I got out of the army and had to
relearn saxophone I started by practicing patterns in
all twelve keys in all scale types. I did that for six
month, six days a week, ten to twelve hours a day.
That was a big project, but I predicted that at the end
of it I’ll regain basic technique and sound production
and I did (though I was still terrible as this practice
routine leaves a lot to be desired). The point is that
some big projects are necessary, but not all of them
are created equal.

Another important thing to keep in mind regarding

this subject is learning to move on. If you do
everything right then the musician you are today is
not the musician you were yesterday. Just because
something worked for you in the past it doesn’t
mean it is still relevant to the person you are at the
moment. In the example I just gave (practicing
patterns), as time went by the amount of hours I had
to invest in order to master each pattern was shorter,
but the reward was diminishing as well. After six
months I felt that it’s time for me to move to the next
thing and that learning more patterns couldn’t
improve my playing as much as other exercises
might.

Keep the Beginner Mentality

Something that’s true in any field of study is that the

biggest strides happen very early on in the learning
process and the deeper you dive into any subject
the harder it is to improve your knowledge and skill
in it. There is a world of difference between
someone that never touched a guitar and someone
that can play a few tunes. I wouldn’t say it’s
common, but it’s not rare to see college students or
even high school seniors play jazz or technically
challenging classical music proficiently, but not
many end up becoming great musicians. In the
beginning, whatever you figure out is completely
new, but as time goes by what you learn are
variations on what you already know. Learning your
first standard or transcribing your first solo is much
harder to manage and takes a long time to
accomplish, but you gain an incredible amount from
it in comparison to the 200th standard/solo you
tackle. That’s another reason why (as I mentioned
before) I don’t like warm up drills. Playing something
you already know barely gives you anything if at all.
What you want to do is consistently put yourself in
situations where the material is new enough that by
mastering it you make real and significant changes
in your playing and thought process. The problem
with this place is that it’s chaotic and not a fun place
to be. At the start of your journey it’s fine because
you have no expectations from yourself as you’re
only a beginner. However, as time goes by you
develop an ego (hopefully a healthy and constructive
one), and it’s no longer comfortable to be in a place
where the tools you already acquired and the
knowledge you obtained don’t seem to help. Be
assured that this uncomfortable feeling is a sign
you’re doing the right thing and learn to embrace it.

Don’t Discover Yourself, Transform Yourself

There’s a common misconception that acquiring

technique and musical tools is what we do in order
to execute the music we have in our heads. The
idea is, that a person has a constant musical identity
and practicing is working on one’s musical identity
expression. I believe the opposite is correct. Our
musical identity is malleable and much of the work is
transforming our relationship to music and the way
we perceive it so we could also transform the ways
in which we create it. The only way to get better at
music is to change yourself. Most of us think of
ourselves as good people, but we rarely think about
what it actually means to be a good person. I believe
the fundamental thing that defines us is our
relationships to the people we interact with. I’m a
father, a husband, a son, a friend, a dog-owner (not
a person technically, but still counts), an employer,
and so on. The list is endless. If I wish to improve as
a person I need to improve myself in any of these
sub-categories (and for most of those have
sub-categories of their own). Here is a completely
made up example: It would make me a better
husband if I’ll stop looking at my phone when my
wife talks to me. It would make me a better
dog-owner if I would dedicate ten minutes a day to
playing with my dog. If I make enough positive
changes in the way I behave towards the people
(and dog) around me it would transform me into a
better person. Same thing with music. If I change my
relationship to rhythm,harmony, tone etc. eventually I
would become a better musician. For that I have to
realize that I’m not a perfect piece of art (regardless
of what my mother may say), but flawed human
being (it’s ok, everyone is), and I need to change
myself and my behavior in fundamental ways to
improve.